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RorO remains the only KeSPA player in WCS Korea WB

It was all ZvZs and PvTs in the first day of Ro16 matches of WCS Korea Nationals but it was also the chance for the two remaining KeSPA players to show their quality.

Time for Ro16 it was, with Curious and Miya getting the honor to open the round. In his second ZvZ in a row in this tournament, SlayerS’ underdog opened both games with an aggressive display of power but in both cases this was met by Curious’ signature indifference and defensive patience. Consequently, the way the games developed was Miya’s low econ builds snowballing downhill towards a 0-2 loss as Curious’s macro spiraled out of control.

With another terran in his way, this was a good chance for Parting to make it to the Ro8 but his opponent being Alive did not make his job too easy. After going down 0-1 after an aggressive push by Parting, Alive played an immaculate game on Ohana, positioning and EMP-ing perfectly to negate Parting’s world-famous psi storms. His magic well ran dry in the third game however, and storms did land. Lethally and en masse.

With the victories of KHAN’s teammates Reality and RorO in the Ro32, the KeSPA vs GSL race became even more intense and high-profiled. The terran played first today, paired against SlayerS’ Puzzle, someone who had already sent one KeSPA player down to the losers bracket. Puzzle got a quick lead in game one and sought to close the series with a 2-base push on Cloud Kingdom. To Reality’s luck, his bunker defense proved strong and as he won the second engagement at his third with a better positioning, the score was tied.

By swaying constantly from one player’s favor to another, the Antiga Shipyard game would quickly become the highlight of the playday. Reality got an early advantage after a devastating hellion drop but foolishly walked into a psi storm by the watch tower some minutes later to give away his lead, one that had grown immensely after Puzzle failed to do anything with his semi-desperation blink counter after losing more than 15 probes to the hellions. The game continued walking the thin edge but after losing said engagement in the center, things began slipping away for Reality as Puzzle secured an additional base and brought it to a 2-1 step by step.

By the power of Reality's mistakes, Puzzle advances to Winners top eight
Photo by: WellPlayed.org

With Reality gone, it was up to RorO to defend the KeSPA side and he did so against Leenock. KHAN’s zerg recovered from a 0-1 disadvantage by using his superior multitasking and decision making to win the base race on Daybreak (a bigger army supply is no good when it’s not together) and the macro war on Ohana (a bigger army supply is no good when you have no bases).

WCS Korea Ro16 Day 1

Curious

2-0

Miya

Parting

2-1

Alive

Puzzle

2-1

Reality

RorO

2-1

Leenock

With these results, RorO remains the only KeSPA player standing in the Winners bracket and he will be playing the winner of Genius and Squirtle which is to be played on August 13th with the remainder of the WB Ro16.